NEGATIVES
–Everything else. This was nothing less than a beatdown by a superior team. The pitching stunk. The offense stunk. The defense stunk (Jay Bruce made his first error of the year, and Todd Frazier made his 6th).

Speaking of Frazier, he’s now 0 for his last 28 at the plate, and hasn’t had a single hit in nine straight games.

NOT-SO-RANDOM THOUGHTS
–Mike Leake gave up four runs in the first inning, and everyone shook their heads knowingly. Well, the Reds got two of those back in the second inning, on Cozart’s homer, Leake settled down, and the score remained 4-2 until the sixth inning. The Reds were still in the game at that point, right?

Wrong. Leake couldn’t record an out, St. Louis scored five in the sixth inning, and the rout was on. For the day, Leake pitched 5+ innings, surrendering seven runs on eight hits and two walks. The bullpen wasn’t much better, including Sam LeCure, who gave up four runs on five hits in the ninth inning alone.

–The Reds have lost six straight series against the Cardinals. Embarrassing.

–Cincinnati has lost seven of nine, and they are fading fast. This team is just not fun to watch. They make mental mistake after defensive mistake after baserunning mistake. I tire of this circus.

A terrible showing today, Redlegs. Just awful. Milton is disappointed.

So, with all these off days….what will be the excuse for Corky catching Homer: “we gotta get Corky going”? Homer can always shake off the catcher, so is his “confidence” really worth trading Mesoraco’s bat for Miller’s, or slowing the momentum Mesoraco is starting to build up? “Keeping Mesoraco fresh” can’t be the excuse with 2 off days in 4 days and having him catch to the bitter end yesterday.

I’ve never quite bought the argument that Dusty just wants to make his players happy or be friends with his players. I agree there are certain players for whom this might ring true, and sometimes he goes out of his way to help players obtain meaningless stats, but how did yesterday’s game make Simon, LeCure, Hoover, or Parra happy? For that matter, how did it make Ondru happy? I doubt Ondru went home and wrote in his diary “Today was a great day! Dusty likes me!” Whenever Baker seems to be favoring one player over another (or others), isn’t he upsetting someone? I think his main problem is that he doesn’t understand basic logic and trusts his “gut” more than stats or common sense. He thinks certain players are better than they are, and doesn’t appreciate other players no matter what the stats say. That’s not a case of wanting to be friends with everyone — it’s a case of being stupid, stubborn, and/or willfully ignorant.

@Baseclogger: I think it’s a combination. For example, yesterday he didn’t want to make the difficult call of saying to Leake “you’ve pitched very well this year, but I’m more confident in Latos against this lineup.” He probably told Paul days ago that he’d be starting, even though Heisey has been hitting better than him even against RHP lately and plays better defense (more important with Leake on the mound than a strikeout pitcher.). With Ondrusek it’s less “I want to be your friend” and more “this is your role”, so it’s his ridiculous approach to bullpen roles that says “early in the game + trailing = Ondrusek”.

@Eric the Red: But, again, wouldn’t it bother Latos that he isn’t given a chance to pitch in a big series? And wouldn’t it bother Heisey that he’s been hitting well, plays solid defense, and has the most seniority of all the team’s outfielders other than Bruce — but isn’t being given a chance to start every day? I just don’t see how Dusty’s decisions can possibly be making everyone happy. What I think is going on is that once Dusty gets an idea into his head, it’s almost impossible to get him to question it. He’s settled on a rotation, so this is his rotation. He’s settled on relief pitchers’ roles, so these are their roles. He’s decided Heisey isn’t an everyday player, so Paul and Robinson will get some starts against righties. And so forth. And it just takes a MOUNTAIN of evidence before he’s willing to rethink anything. He had decided Cozart was going to be a good #2 hitter, and, while most of us recognized immediately that this was a bad idea, it took Dusty half a season to acknowledge it. I think the vast majority of Dusty’s bad decisions can be traced back to some idea he once got into his head and he simply can’t or won’t question anything he ever does until the evidence is so absolutely overwhelming that even he can’t disregard it. I’m reminded of Nixon saying “When the President does it, that means it is not illegal.” I think Dusty thinks “when the Manager does it, that means it’s a good baseball decision.”

A few days ago, somebody replied to a comment by saying that he didn’t really see evidence of Dusty “giving away” games, etc……. Pitching Ondrusek and Partch are signs that he gave up on games, although we’ll never know whether a comeback was possible.

Also, somebody please explain why, these days, it’s possible to consider using Chapman for more than an inning? Dusty had him warming up at least once in that situation on the road trip and told Marty that scenario was now possible. … My question is why did it have to wait until now? Every game of the entire 162 count in the standings. So it was OK to give up on that spate of games in June when we had that rash of 8th-inning miseries? Using Chapman once or twice in that situation might have a noticeable change in the standings we face now. …

Looks like a good portion of The Nation has now given up on the season? “Go Bengals!” Really? Talk about futility, The Bengals, heck the NFL in general is awful. A baseball fan would never choose to watch a football game over a baseball game. Sorry, just how I see it.

I think I’m bowing out of The Nation for a while. I’m going to enjoy just watching baseball games again without thinking about what’s going to be said the next day.

When a team with this much talent is playing so poorly, a shakeup is needed. But with this front office and Baker as the manager, it won’t happen. But we are still in the hunt for the last wild-card spot.